Here in SF I opted out from the telco-cableco duopoly, and I get 45Mbps symmetrical service from an outfit called Web-Pass, for $45/month. They use the Cat3 wiring inside my apartment building to deliver 100Base-T Ethernet, with a microwave beacon on the roof for backhaul. In some other locations, they offer the full 100Mbps. I'd much rather have the enhanced uploads, as I run my own servers at home and do offsite backups over the network.

Well last week the cable guys came out and replaced my cable modem and gave me an upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0. As a business customer of CoxBusiness I learned a few years ago that we just get treated better than the residential customers, so the extra $60.00 a month or so has never been a concern. I ...

I fail to see how virtualized SIMs fundamentally change the equation. Users already can and do swap SIMs. This just makes it easier for Apple to provision phones without having to physically swap SIMs. Operators get their market power through things like SIM-lock and plain old oligopoly in the US, and a cartel-like refusal to offer data services on a prepaid basis. That's not likely to change soon.

Last month, GigaOM posted the news that Apple is working with SIM card manufacturer Gemalto to cut out the carriers. A new embedded SIM card from Gemalto would allow the loading of the operator-specific data onto the SIM after the phone was purchase. This week, there was news of the GSMA working ...

Another factor to consider is that "open access" to public information does not necessarily mean it is equally open to all social groups as a practical matter, and in fact acts to the detriment of the poor:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/when_open_data_is_bad.php

- why open data needs a non-commercial-use license, and the lessons of microcredit. “Government 2.0” is the initiative to make government data open to the public using Web-based technologies. Leading light Tim O’Reilly describes it as “government as platform”. The idea is that open data - provi...

I use a Matias Tactilepro V3 on my Mac at home (and have a spare just in case they stop manufacturing it, as they did with the V1):
http://majid.info/blog/matias-tactilepro-3-0-review/
I rotated my old V1 Tactilepro to my office. Some keycaps are fading on the V1, but the V2 is laser-engraved.
For Mac users, it's pretty much the only game in town.

As a guy who spends most of his day typing words on a screen, it's hard for me to take touch computing seriously. I love my iPhone 4, and smartphones are the ultimate utility belt item, but attempting to compose any kind of text on the thing is absolutely crippling. It is a reasonable compromis...